shoulderpet

Was just about to post about this blatant fake, someone beat me to it.

I'm not as well versed as some on Fenders but immediately I noticed that the headstock shape is wrong, the tuners are wrong, the bridge is wrong and that sloppy routing around the bridge pickup.

The bidding is currently at £270 !!! Eek!!!

1 hour ago, Paolo85 said:

Based on my admittedly limited experience of alnico vs ceramic I believe this should be the alnico!

The alnico Wilkinson is a great pickup, imo easily as good as the more expensive vintage voiced pickups out there,I use a Duncan SPB-2 nowadays because I like the midrange bark it gives but the Wilkinson is very good also

1 hour ago, Paolo85 said:

Thanks! Yes thin is definitely the right word

Yeah I had a lightbulb moment regarding PJ basses, a lot of the more inexpensive ones have J pickups in the 4-5k range which means that as soon as you add in the J pickup your tone really thins out, your tone will get thinner anyway with the j pickup added in due to phase cancellation so if the bridge pickup is underpowered then it will be they noticeably thinner sounding. 

3 minutes ago, Paolo85 said:

Well, in the end I have bought a Squier P with Wilkinson pickup already on here in the classifieds instead of upgrading my PJ. I am extremely happy with it, it plays the part exactly as I wanted and GAS has now subdued.

At this point I will probably keep the ceramic P pickup in the PJ for differentiation (on top of flats vs rounds) and replace only the J bridge pickup which is dreadful.

If it is the Alnico Wilkinson that is a really good pickup that way exceeds what you would expect from such an inexpensive pickup. 

Good call on replacing the J pickup, if it is anything like most stock j pickups on PJ basses then it is probably only wound to 4 or 5k which usually means the tone really thins out when the j pickup is on.

Gig.ink is good

7 minutes ago, Bassfinger said:

Entwistle forxa nice bit of bite, Warman for some real growl.

Warman is another one I've been curious about, seeing how cheap they are I will have to get some and see how I like them

2 hours ago, 3below said:

I bought one of those from a BC member. The wood is really good and lightweight. The fit of the cavity to pickguard screws required work.  The finish is ok, at some point I may sand it back and improve the body contours, they are a little crude. I also had to widen the neck pocket.

Thanks, the more I look into this the more I am wondering if I should just buy a Fender neck and body rather than piece together components from different manufacturers and praying that they fit

8 minutes ago, Dan Dare said:

 

Depends how accurately you can work with wood. The neck ideally wants to be a snug fit in the pocket and you will need to ensure the sides of the pocket sit flush against it with no gaps. How are your woodworking skills?

Thanks, I think I will get someone else to do that part for me then, fortunately one of the best luthiers/repairmen in the country is about a mile from where I live

On 11/06/2022 at 15:47, chris_b said:

Many years ago, I replaced my original Fender Precision pickup with Bartolini. My sound went from average and anaemic to a glorious dynamic, punchy and warm sound.

 

The Barts that came on my early Lakland 55-94 produced an equally fantastic sound.

Always been curious about Bart's, one day I will get some

Thanks for the replies all, am hoping someone with expy can chime in, I have seen this p bass body Gear4music p bass  from Gear4music and the price is good and it seems to be finished already but the neck pocket is only 61mm wide, the neck I am looking at fitting is 63.4mm so I think realistically to get the neck to fit I am probably looking at widening the neck pocket 3-4mm, is it going to be difficult to widen the pocket this much, am I letting myself in for a major ball ache if I purchase this p bass body and have to widen the neck pocket that much ?

Thanks for the replies, very helpful

Another thing I have noticed that is odd is that most of the aftermarket p bass bodies have 61 or 62mn neck pockets but most p bass necks have a heel width of 63 or 64mm, what gives?

Am thinking of putting together a parts p bass and have seen unfinished p bass bodies with no finish at all applied to the wood for dirt cheap. 

I know with bass necks they need to be finished to keep out moisture etc, what about bass bodies? Can you get away with not finishing them? 

I was thinking of getting an unfinished body and just applying some wax or similar to prevent it from getting grubby

I live in a very small studio flat and don't have a garage, shed or workshop to do finishes

That being said I suppose I could finish in a clear varnish and do one side of the body at a time

I love metal but don't know a lot of Doom metal but I would say this song is essential listening

[YouTube]

On 06/06/2022 at 09:42, Ed_S said:

I used to really like the sound of fresh steels on my American Standard, but the frets on that bass were so soft that the steels made an absolute mess inside a few months. That was with ProSteels, which I always found to be relatively kind to everything else. I think Warwick Reds NPS are unpleasantly rough (especially the B string), so if the steels are anything like, I dread to think what they'd have done to that bass!

 

 

Honestly I would invest the money in a refret, maybe stainless steel frets, might not be worth it on a cheap bass but on an American Standard I think it is worth it

1 hour ago, thewebow said:

Used to love just that tone. Now a days I like to have that and something else in my pocket.  Like flats through a b-15 for example..

 

has anyone tried dunlop strings with p bass? Interested in peoples opions

I've gone the opposite way, I used to love flats and I would use them and very occasionally tapewounds but I find that most bass amps are eq'd to be very bass heavy with much less emphasis on mids and treble even with flat eq and the flats made this even more apparent, add to this that I enjoy the occasional open mic/jam night where you are pretty much stuck with however the host has there amp eq'd

6 hours ago, ubit said:

There is nothing I like better that the P bass with brand new stainless rounds through an SVT. A'la Mark Hoppus but with finger style. Just heavenly.

+1 to this, I use stainless rounds and change them once a month

On 03/12/2021 at 21:08, funkle said:

An update on this project. 

 

After a long time of using the bass, I came eventually to the conclusion that it probably needed a preamp to get the most out of the system, partly to buffer the pickups, and partly to shape the resulting sounds of the pickups together or solo'd. Ultimately, I realised that this would require me to route out a complete electronics cavity at the back, as well as shell out for a decent pre, and I felt I had spent all I wanted to.   

 

After a while of living with it, having the rear pickup reversed was the better compromise, but I think I ended up still having the coils too close to the bridge to be useful without a preamp. I just ended up swapping the problem from the DG strings to the EA strings, which was better, but just a bit annoying.

 

I ended up with the maple neck on another bass with flats, which I now adore. I parted out all the nice bits of hardware and pickups too. The body is still with me....which is good, because I now have another project which it will be perfect for, which I did not anticipate. More on that later, will be starting a new thread. I guess I cannot stop fettling with basses, much to my chagrin.

 

My previous recommendations stand - a P-J or P-MM is probably more convenient, easier to get right, and easier to get the pickups in the right spots to work better than a P-P. But if I was going to do another P-P. now I know what I would change, and what works well. I hope that this narrative has been helpful to others, perhaps as a warning, lol.  

Very interesting thread, have never played a P/P setup but would love to, have just recently wired my p bass in parallel and quite liking the tone, the p pickup is a Duncan SPB-2 which sounds good in parallel as it's DC resistance is around 22k so it still sounds pretty meaty in parallel

55 minutes ago, Ricky Rioli said:

At the moment I've got a 110 Pro Steel on one bass and a 105 Roto Bass on the other, and surprisingly the 105 Roto Bass is more convincing dropped down to D. The Pro Steel is good enough on the bottom 5 frets, but then loses focus.

 

I'm wondering what the 110 Roto Bass would be like. 

Tone when detuning is such a strange thing, I tried a 105 Roto bass also and it was ok but there was a definite degradation in the tone compared to my 95-40 Rotos tuned to E, even more oddly the 95 gauge E sounded better in D than the 105 E, the 105 E sounded great in E standard btw.

On 15/05/2022 at 22:03, Bunion said:

P bass?

Yes ...imo

You don't need enough low end to make people s!!t themselves, the amount of bands I have seen where the bass is just a subsonic rumble with no definition.

Guitarists who boost there low end should be beaten with the item guitars, the amount of times I have played music with guitar players who seem to think the guitar should have as much low end as the bass.

Satin necks are awful, dreadful things and even worse when they are that awful deathly pale shade

A £500 bass is essentially a £250 bass with very marginally better quality control 

Fender player series basses are pretty much £250 Squiers with a Fender logo

On 27/05/2022 at 10:33, SteveXFR said:

 

I know this is unpopular opinions but you've just crossed a line

I like Duran Duran too

Tuning down to D is roughly the same as going down about 2 gauges (and about 3 gauges for the D) so I would recommend 110-50 or a 115 D if you can find it unless you particularly like very low tension strings

1 hour ago, Bassassin said:

Re: the satin finish - it will gloss up after a bit of playing, if that's not quick enough, go at it with T-Cut, & it'll be gleaming like a very shiny thing in about 20 minutes.

Would that work? I thought that would just wear away the finish

24 minutes ago, Stub Mandrel said:

A zero fret helps, but isn't fashionable.

Doesn't seem to help Hofner 😂  (Thats not a dig I actually quite like Hofner's but they were never known for there intonation

5 hours ago, Bassfinger said:

Warman would have given you all thstmdor a fifth the price.

What are they like? Not a lot of reviews about for them, I like a bright aggressive tone with p basses and always wondered if these would be the magic bullet

53 minutes ago, FinnDave said:

My Vintera Jazz and Classic 50s Precision (same as Vintera) have the original cross head screw at the body end of the neck. With care, they can be adjusted by removing the scratch plate, but that is one period feature I could happily do without.

You got lucky there, with mine I have to remove the neck, tried removing the scratch plate but it needs just a fraction of a mm more space to adjust the truss rod, the only bass feature on an otherwise incredible bass. 

Edit: that being said I have only tried adjusting with one of the truss rod keys designed for a body access truss rod, I wonder if a screwdriver would allow me to adjust it